About

I’ve spent more than a decade working in the wedding world, but I’ve always been especially drawn to the couples who want to do things their own way. I started out as a wedding photographer and eventually found myself working with florals, décor, rentals, planning, and wedding-day setup. Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of couples around Toronto and have seen just about every kind of wedding there is—from elegant venue celebrations and beautiful farm weddings to intimate backyard gatherings and the wonderfully chaotic ones where absolutely nothing seems to go according to plan. All of those experiences gave me a pretty good understanding of what happens behind the scenes of a wedding, but it wasn’t until I planned my own wedding that I really understood what it feels like to be the person responsible for making all of those decisions yourself.

We got married in King, Ontario with 80 guests and a budget of about $18,000, and I planned the entire thing in four months. I made my own dress, did all of my flowers, found and managed our vendors, organized the details, built the timeline, and somehow ended up with more than 30 spreadsheets. My family definitely made fun of me for that one. But those spreadsheets became my little wedding-planning command centre. They helped me keep track of everything from our budget and guest list to vendor payments, décor, setup, the timeline, and all the tiny details I was afraid I would forget. There was a lot to figure out, and there were plenty of moments where I wondered if I had completely lost my mind by deciding to plan so much of it myself, but I also genuinely loved being involved in all of it.

And despite not having a day-of coordinator, our wedding day actually went incredibly smoothly. I didn’t do everything myself. That’s an important distinction. I had a plan, and I had people I trusted to help me execute it. Our family and friends each had jobs, everyone knew what they were responsible for, and I was able to hand things over and actually enjoy the day. I wasn’t running around trying to put out every little fire because I had already thought through what needed to happen and who would handle it. That experience completely changed how I think about DIY weddings. DIY doesn’t have to mean doing absolutely everything yourself. In fact, I think trying to do everything yourself is one of the easiest ways to make your wedding more stressful than it needs to be.

For me, DIY is really about being intentional about where you spend your money, your time, and your energy. Maybe you want to make your own flowers because you genuinely enjoy it. Maybe you want to design your invitations, hunt down your own vendors, create your own décor, or build your own wedding website. Maybe you love spreadsheets and want to plan every little detail yourself. Or maybe there are certain parts of the planning process that you absolutely do not want to touch. There’s no rule that says you have to choose between planning everything yourself and hiring a full-service wedding planner. You can do most of